NYC

NYC; Subway Fare: Bottom Line On Jump to $2

By CLYDE HABERMAN

Published: July 18, 2003

ONCE prices go up, they don't come down. That was the opinion heard around town this week after a state appeals court gave its blessing to the higher mass-transit fares and tolls in effect since May.

In doing that, the court reversed the decisions of lower-level judges who had ordered a fare rollback, having found the Metropolitan Transportation Authority guilty of bad faith, bad judgment and nearly everything else short of bad breath.

For a while, some New Yorkers dared to dream the impossible dream: a refund. When that bubble burst, many reacted with world-weary sighs. Aah, we knew it all along, they said. 'Twas too good to be true. Indeed, once prices go up, they don't come down.

But sometimes they do. The transit fare is an example, especially for New Yorkers who regularly use the subway and buses. Even with this fare increase, to a base of $2, they are paying less than the old $1.50 base and barely more than they were a decade ago.

The reason, of course, is the MetroCard, which has sent the subway token to a retirement home. The card makes possible an assortment of discounts long championed by advocacy groups like the Straphangers Campaign that are now taking the transportation authority to task and to court.

Under the old $1.50 base fare, the authority estimated that the average rider was actually paying only $1.04, thanks to the discounts and free transfers between buses and the subway. (Many people have already forgotten that such transfers were impossible until just a few years ago.)

Granted, the agency's math has been seriously called into question. Its leaders admit, somewhat belatedly, that they have been far from models of clarity or transparency about their finances.

But unless you have better numbers in your pocket, it is hard to challenge that $1.04 figure. It amounts to 4 cents more than the $1 fare that prevailed in the late 1980's, pre-MetroCard. Not exactly a sign of rampant inflation, is it?

O.K., the base fare is now up to $2. No one is happy about it. But with the discounts, the transportation authority projects that the cost of a ride will average about $1.30. Its estimates will have to do for a while because it is too soon for hard numbers.

That $1.30 is comfortably below the old base fare of $1.50. It is also a mere nickel above the $1.25 that was the fare from 1992 to 1995.

True, not all people do benefit equally from the MetroCard, as the Straphangers Campaign often points out. The discounts favor riders who can shell out a hefty sum -- $70 for the 30-day card, for example -- more than those able to spare only a few dollars at a time. Also, some people have no choice but to pay the full $2.

Still, the principle behind all the discounts is the same: those who rely on them the most will enjoy the greatest benefits. If you ride the subway or the bus a lot, your cost per ride will significantly shrink, ending up much closer to $1 than to $2. Is there a more fundamental goal for mass-transit advocates than to increase ridership and, in the process, keep cars off the streets?

PERHAPS the real issue is that price increases have not come often enough. That is what some officials are beginning to think, and they have more than mass transit in mind.

In the last month, both the State University and the City University of New York have substantially raised undergraduate tuition, by as much as 28 percent. Both went eight years with no increases at all.

Taxi fares in New York are likely to rise appreciably; they have not budged in seven years. The recent increase in the property tax, 18.5 percent, was the first in more than a decade. Back to the mass-transit fare, it had not gone up in seven and a half years. For three decades before that, fares rose every two or three years, on average, always by relatively small amounts.

Peter S. Kalikow, the transportation authority chairman, has said that a return to more modest, but more frequent, increases may be the wiser path. Matthew Goldstein, the City University chancellor, has made a similar point about tuition increases.

The concept makes sense to Mitchell Moss, an urban affairs specialist at New York University and an adviser to the mayor. If price increases are necessary and inevitable, Professor Moss said, better that they come in small doses, in good times as well as bad. That way, he said, ''it's a lot easier for people to absorb.''

The alternative is sticker shock, which is what New Yorkers are now experiencing -- and not liking it one bit.